IdealRaw Organic Protein Shake Review — Super High in Iron

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IdealRaw is part of IdealShape, a nutrition company based in Utah that has several different branches with different foci, including IdealShake, IdealBar, IdealLean, IdealBoost, and so on.

IdealRaw is a little different in that it focuses on organic supplements including teas, greens powders, and digestive supplements, and they’ve got an informative blog on their site that’s full of recipes and informative articles.

Not everything is organic, but everything in the vegan protein shake I’m looking at here is. It comes in six flavors: chocolate, vanilla, superberry, mocha, banana almond, and the one I’m trying out today, chocolate peanut butter.

Here’s what the nutrition info looks like, and there was certainly one big surprise on the label.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8BUgI-eVM4&feature=youtu.be

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IdealRaw

IdealRaw

This protein powder is vegan friendly, gluten, soy, and dairy free. Use code "BarBend10" for 10% off your order.

IdealRaw Organic Protein Shake Nutrition

Regarding micronutrients, there aren’t any vitamins listed here: 0 percent of your daily Vitamin A and Vitamin C. Minerals are a different story. There’s 13 percent of the recommended daily intake of sodium (320 milligrams), 2 percent of your calcium, and the most remarkable component, 80 percent of the RDI of iron.

IdealRaw Organic Protein Shake Benefits & Effectiveness

For starters, let’s talk about that iron. There doesn’t appear to be any added iron, so I believe it comes mostly from the legumes and seeds in the ingredients list. The other IdealRaw Organic Protein Shakes vary in their content: Vanilla has 120 percent of the daily iron, Superberry has “just” 20 percent.

Eighty percent is a huge amount and it could be particularly useful for vegan consumers since iron can sometimes be a little tough to get without supplements unless you’re paying careful attention to nutrient intake.

Speaking of which, this isa vegan product, but it may be worth noting that it’s made in a facility that also process shellfish and dairy, along with soy, nuts, and wheat. If you have sensitive allergies or if you just don’t like your vegan protein to be anywhere near animal products, that might give you pause.

While some might not be crazy about the 10 grams of carbs for 15 grams of protein, the 4 grams of fiber is a nice hit and it reduces the net carbs of the overall serving.

The main thing that puzzled me about this product was the vitamins. Many consumers might like the fact that there’s a “SuperFruits Blend” of cranberries, pomegranate, broccoli, wheat grass, and beet powder. But there are zero vitamins listed on the label and practically no calcium; only the iron is impressive. It’s strange because all of those ingredients are very high in Vitamin C in their whole food form, so if there’s zero measurable Vitamin C in the end product it’s hard to know what the SuperFruits are bringing to the table. Presumably, they confer some antioxidants, but it’s not vitamins.

IdealRaw Organic Protein Shake Price

You can pick up 30 servings for $45, which comes to $1.14 per serving or 7.6 cents per gram of protein. That’s a pretty reasonable price. Organic vegan proteins are between 5.5 and 7.5 cents per gram of protein so while it’s a tiny bit high, it’s a perfectly acceptable cost.

IdealRaw Organic Protein Shake Taste

I was crazy about the Chocolate Peanut Butter. In my experience, vegan protein powders can be too earthy or too nutty, and Chocolate Peanut Butter really plays to those strengths. It tasted like a dark chocolate peanut butter cup, not too sweet but very satisfying.

The Takeaway

Don’t expect any vitamins from those fruits, but this is a pretty reasonably priced, unusually tasty protein powder that has an incredible hit of iron and a nice dose of fiber. I’m a fan.

IdealRaw Organic Protein Shake

Per Serving: $1.14

8.7

Ingredients

9.5/10

Effectiveness

8.0/10

Price

7.5/10

Taste

9.9/10

Pros

Very high in iron

Good dose of fiber

Tasty

Cons

Nick is a content producer and journalist with over seven years’ experience reporting on four continents. His first articles about health were on a cholera outbreak in rural Kenya while he was reporting for a French humanitarian organization. His next writing job was covering the nightlife scene in Shanghai. He’s written on a lot of things.

After Shanghai, he went on to produce a radio documentary about bodybuilding in Australia before finishing his Master’s degrees in Journalism and International Relations and heading to New York City. Here, he’s been writing on health full time for more than five years for outlets like BarBend, Men's Health, VICE, and Popular Science.

No fan of writing in the third person, Nick’s passion for health stems from an interest in self improvement: How do we reach our potential?

Questions like these took him through a lot of different areas of health and fitness like gymnastics, vegetarianism, kettlebell training, fasting, CrossFit, Paleo, and so on, until he realized (or decided) that strength training fit best with the ideas of continuous, measurable self improvement.

At BarBend his writing focuses a little more on nutrition and long-form content with a heaping dose of strength training. His underlying belief is in the middle path: you don’t have to count every calorie and complete every workout in order to benefit from a healthy lifestyle and a stronger body. Plus, big traps are cool.

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